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This Christmas .. I just wanted to do something different, something that was in keeping with the environmental feelings of not creating more waste ...
All round it has been a different kind of year.. So on a walk with my husband we came across a 9ft Ash branch in the undergrowth around the moat at
the beautiful Wells Cathedral. It was naturally a bit wet and covered in lichen and bald! So my husband retrieved it and brought it home. Normally
we have a 7ft chunky Spruce, which is beautiful, traditional and takes over a lot of space but has enough branches to house most of our now large collection
of decorations...

So time for change ... First issue to find a container to work with the skeletal dancing limbs of the tree. A good old 'rootle' around the cupboards and
a perfect solution an old terracotta bread bin... Filled with off white gravel, which cost £3.29, which we will repatriate to the garden come the New
Year ... No waste there... It also secures the tree beautifully in place....

I chose decorations from Christmas box, ones that I thought would work with the design on these bare branches, but it needed a splash of colour... So a
ball of red wool threaded through red, silver and black baubles and tied with a bow added to the design with a scattering of decorations taken from
our large box of goodies. The wool cost £2.50.

The delightful effect was finished off with the feel of festive icicles created from a beaded strings that I usually use to create shaped loops on our
Spruce... Overall cost of our Christmas tree £5.79. Not bad!

What fun in the hallway... I am a habitual reader of glossy magazines, so with the aid of my trusty guillotine and a bit of tape I quickly made an enormous
Christmas paper chain ... You can choose your colours to match your design ... I like the dramatic ... Sort of Versace look against the white background
... And look at those shadows .... Such a good look...

So all in all a simple designs for pennies ... I wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a Peaceful New Year ... x

I like to cook… Often I make my own recipes up to suit my tastes or those of my family or my mood at the time… I am a visual cook.. I
take ideas from pictures, magazines, books, something I see on a plate in a restaurant or on the TV, anything that catches my attention…
But often I cook based on an experience I have had … In this case:

Quiche Lorraine,this blog is based on a childhood memory from my childhood home – Dutch Gardens in Wraysbury or as I affectionately called it ‘Toilets-ville’…
Sunday lunch, come hell or high water you came home for the habitual, sometimes torturous family meal… It was obligatory… Like a lot of families, Sunday lunches could be more than a trifle tense!

Strolling in the house from my usual summer haunt, the local reservoir, where I had been swimming all day with my friends, I went out onto the lawns
at the back of the house. There on the lawn was today's chosen spot for lunch. The round garden table had been set up for late lunch in the usual
opulent design style by my mother; on this occasion the table was covered with a patterned table cloth in hideous bright green with large white
Chinese flower design printed on it. Over the top of that was the ornately crocheted white table cloth made by my grandmother, with raised flower
petals, which made it almost impossible to place anything down on the table as the protruding woollen flowers made the surface so uneven that anything
you placed on the table was prone to fall over. Subsequently, this ‘heirloom’ spent most of its life soaking in water due to spillages and the
like!Place mats had been laid out on top of this uneven surface, which were also themed in Chinese style thus in unison with the table cloth, placed
on top of the mats were four white plates decorated with green ivy leaves, [aren’t they poisonous?]. The cutlery today had black plastic handles
that could be hung on a centre piece when not in use like a table mounted chandelier. And the newest pepper grinder adorned the table, a huge out
of proportion shiny black object. For those of you that remember the 70’s… Pepper grinders, ‘were all the rage’ and got larger and larger
and became a design statement… How big is yours?!! The table as ever was the epitome of this month’s current fashion style of the moment
as seen through the eyes of my mother.

My father Trevor was hovering around the garden foliage tensely, adorned in one of my mother’s aprons, he was bringing things from the house on the
long journey to the table… Backward and forward he went. I have often wondered, why the British in good or moderately good weather set their
tables up so far away from the house and kitchen so it becomes a marathon to just serve the table in an easy natural manner, at Dutch Gardens it
could take ten minutes pending on where the dining table was placed, to go back to the kitchen to get another drink! Have you noticed in sunnier
climes, the alfresco eating is simple and easy…. The barbeque, the table are all built next to the kitchen on the nearby terrace area, genius!
As yet to be adopted by the British!

Trevor reappeared again on one of the far flung terraces carefully carrying new china jugs masquerading and modelled on lettuce leaves, filled with
salad cream and mayonnaise. His tongue slightly out of his mouth as he concentrated on balancing the jugs on their lettuce leaf saucers, as he
negotiated his way to the table with the jugs intact. Off he went again, this time he tried the route via the arched bridge over the pond, which
in the winter was lethal, because the ‘hump’ was so severe that in the icy weather it was a death trap, you slid down it and if you were lucky
ended up at the bottom of the bridge, if you were less lucky you went off the edge into the pond, which was less painful if it was not covered
in ice. In the summer however, you could walk up and over the steep incline of the bridge, which had archways cut into the top wall through which
you could look through onto the sunken garden, through two of the archways came the branches of the old Victoria plumb tree, a fine specimen that
in the summer groaned with the weight of the fruit crop, if you lived at Dutch Gardens you knew not to take this route, so my brother and I watched
with some interest as Trevor made his way back to the house on this path, and as we expected once he had got to the middle of this small bridge
he took to running and hopping, the reason being that in midsummer the plumb tree was so laden with fruit that it would drop to the ground and
ferment, which meant it was an intoxicating attraction to hordes of wasps, who would feed and gorge on the sweet flesh, rendering them incapable
of properly taking to the air so they would stagger around on the ground in a drunken agitated bliss on the steepest part of the bridge, wings
flapping but going nowhere in a state of what can only be described as mania. [Come we have all been there!] Needless to say they took acceptation
to anyone walking on them or near them over the bridge!

Sometime later Trevor, having survived with only minor injury reappeared again this time via the morning room terrace, carrying a larger china bowl
that was in the shape of what looked like cauliflower adorned with lettuce leaves, which was sat on a large plate decorated with a china tomatoes
pattern. Deciding to take a safer route to the right, he set off… In his ‘piny’ pocket was a bottle of ketchup, reaching the table he placed
them down… For a Sunday lunch these items were indeed unusual. The ketchup, I got, my brother was known to cover his plate in ketchup. But
salad? Trevor did not do salad? And on Sundays we only ever had a roast? Trevor’s favourite meal, Trevor, being a war baby was a great believer
in the theory that there was nothing healthier than a good fat ball around the heart to keep you healthy! How times have changed! Trevor does not
even do vegetables except on rare occasions if they are pan fired in butter… So salad? It just did not make sense … My brother and
I sat down, knowing this was not the time to ask obvious questions..

Trevor sat, he was quietly clearly brooding, something to be fair he excelled at! He fumbled with his napkin trying to tuck it into his shirt to stop
what would have normally been gravy dribbling down his shirt… Finally, yonder, my exceptionally beautiful mother appeared at the door of
the morning room, dressed on this occasion like Margo from the sitcom ‘The Good Life’, in plunging blue midi dress with matching head
scarf and wrap around platform sandals, the attached gold medallions chinking as she walked. Holding a large tray with oven gloved hands she made
her approach to the table via the terrace, down the York stone flagged stairs over onto the next terrace, down the steps and onto the lawn and
then around the pond and across the lawn to where we were sitting.. Everything in my childhood was a production… Without exception and this
was not an exception ….

She placed the tray on the table and immediately Trevor’s mood lightened… There was his favourite food … An enormous Yorkshire pudding,
just for him, which was placed in front of him.. In the centre of the table my mother placed a Quiche Lorraine, which was the
first time I had seen one and some butter new potatoes, which I had seen!… The Quiche was in a white sculpted edged, 4cm deep china tart
dish, you know the ones that have the recipe printed on the bottom of the dish, so you can’t read it once you have started to cook it, this also
always confused me as a child… My life was really a constant confusion! The tart was light golden brown and decorated with cooked sliced
tomatoes all made with eggs, milk and cheese….. And my memory of it, was that it was delicious… There was no family
‘issues’ for a change on this occasion… However it was the first and last time that my mother ever deviated from the normal Sunday roast…
But it made an impression on me… A very Happy One!

This is my take on an autumn quiche,is nothing like that simple but voluptuous number that my mother made on that Sunday, times change
and so do recipes, but none the less it is a summer staple of my family… But now we are officially in autumn, for me that does not quite
work, So this is my season take on a warm tart.. Without wishing to make a pun .. Everyone likes a warm tart! This one can be eaten hot or cold
and can be frozen … Because it is spiced with chilli it retains a heat …

Either buy your short crust pastry or make it yourself, whichever suits your preference, white flour – I have also used corn flour for anyone with gluten issues… It makes the finish a bit crisper and flaky… A
26cm loose bottom tin will do, you will shout at me at first because, you will think that there is not enough pastry to fill the tin, but just
roll it thin …. It works!

You know how to make pastry … Right …. Cube the butter mix with the flour, salt and use your fingers or a mixer to turn it into crumbs,
then carefully bind with a bit of water and kneed for a bit on a cold floured surface … Wrap in cling film and bung it in the fridge for
at least 30 mins … When ready roll it thinly and place in the tart tins that have been lightly greased, then put the tins back in the fridge.

The oven should be switched on to 200 / 180 or there about’s … I used to use an Aga in another house so I am really a bit loose when it comes
to oven heat! … At the moment until the kitchen is ‘done’ in this house, I have an ‘old bus’ that came with the
house… It has a dodgy door and the dials have mostly lost their instruction symbols, and you can burn your fingers turning them off! It
sort of looks like it came out of my Grandma’s kitchen from the 1970 and has been continually used since then without a break! Not easy but you
go with what you have … Until the refurb! ….

For the filling ….

Sprinkling of smoked Paprikaor Cayenne, if you don’t have Paprika..

5’ish medium sized onions – I like red

Butter & a bit of oil to stop it catching for frying

1tsp or whatever is your heat kick of chilli flakes

7 – 14 cherry tomatoes or whatever you have to hand

2 eggs

300ml of cream or thereabouts..

Cheese, your choice, a cheddar or to be posh even a Parmesan, you choose how much cheese you like..

Parsley

Salt & Pepper ..

If you have time or are in the mood, slice the onions into rings, or whatever shape suits your knife skills… Pan fry them in the butter and
oil .. You want them to have a crunch, but if you can try and catch the edges of the onions in the butter, it looks good… If I was a proper
cook I would say, set aside the onions on a plate to cool, but I am not! So bung in the cut tomatoes with the onions and soften them down and let
them catch a bit. too.. Tip… If the tomatoes are in any way ‘tart’ … Then throw in a quick sprinkle of
caster sugar..

Whilst you are cooking the onion and tomatoes, bake the pastry cases blind.. Before you put them in the oven prick the base of the pastry and sprinkle
with smoked paprika – put a bit of grease proof paper in the pastry cases and fill with uncooked rice if you don’t have any cooking beans …
Cook for about 15 minutes, if you want to be a purist then you can take the pastry out of the oven after 15 minutes and paint the cases with some
beaten egg and then pop them back in the oven for another 5 minutes.. This makes the pastry even more crisp..

In a bowl beat the eggs, add salt & pepper with some chopped parsley, the cream, cheese and chilli flakes and sometimes, Tip… I
put a spoonful of mustard in the mixture for some background balance… Put the onion and tomato mixture in the pastry case and drizzle over
the creamy mixture… Turn the oven down a bit to say 180 – 160 and bake for 25 - 35 minutes, until the tart is golden in colour… This
tart can be eaten hot or cold, depending on your preference.. If you choose to freeze it, I like to re-heat the tart, when defrosted, with a bit
of tin foil over the top to protect its integrity …

Tip… Be careful where you place the tart in the freezer… My nouveau riche parents, who built their own designer home in the 1970’s, [please see Voyage: Dutch Gardens – My Childhood Home], for some reason they decided to put a small freezer above the fridge at high level, which was strange; one evening whilst I was happily watching Crossroads on TV in the lounge, I heard an enormous thud and a sort of cry… I thought about ignoring it as unusual… Because things were always happening at Dutch Gardens and mostly it was best not to investigate..

However… curiosity pulled me away from the TV and I strolled through the house, scanning the large windows as I went to see if I could see what had happened this time.. I came into the large entrance hall at the front of the house and scanned the scene outside through the glass.. Nothing … As I span around to return to the TV, there on the kitchen floor was my mother spread eagled unconscious on the floor with a large bruise on her forehead and a dead chicken next to her.. Although being accustomed to unusual things, seeing a frozen dead chicken on the floor was a new one on me.. Contemplating my options, I decided to approach and see what I could do… My mother was now coming round and needed me to help pull her up, into a sitting position, and lean her up against the kitchen cupboard… I scanned the scene and realised that my mother had clearly opened the high level freezer, presumably to retrieve something out of the there, obviously a rogue frozen chicken had fallen out of the freezer and hit her square on the forehead knocking her out cold!

… For the record this was not the first or last time I had reason to be sceptical of the behaviour of a frozen chickens … Don’t get me started on my aunt and her frozen chicken … That is perhaps for another time! …

So an accompaniment to our spicy tart .. On this occasion I rather liked the idea of the last of the ‘new’ potatoes of the season,
boiled and then rolled in olive oil, put them in the oven with half garlic crowns and roast for 20 – 30 minutes, sprinkled of course with salt
& pepper for the flavour.

My husband loves peas, so for the veg, what about Warm Pea Salad… Peas, lettuce and cucumber… Warmed in olive
oil, vinegar a pinch of sugar, salt & pepper…

I am working on a project for a sitting room which requires some full on colours on the walls in picture blocks….To offset the more sober stylised colours which is the backdrop to this room which is housed in an old building. This project is based on gentleman’s club/lounge … Bit of a mix I agree, but I am always up for a challenge…If nothing else! I will post the pictures of the room once it is finished…It is all quite exciting!

So spurred on by this form of thinking… Today’s blog is also a bit of a mix…

As this is an eclectic post, I am combining the photography idea’s with a cooking idea for the weekend.. I hear the weather is going to be good! I happened to be chatting food with a twitter friend in Turkey… And he got me thinking … Back to my time in Turkey…

I love food and I love cooking as you will know if you follow my blogs … And I like easy fun cooking in the summer… So I have combined bright photographs for my interior look with my recipe for preserving lemons, just to add a bit of colour to the blog! You can’t say that I am not multi-thinking!

Preserve Lemons are fabulous and can be used in so many recipes from all nations. If you have never used them you should, they really give a ‘vroom’ to a recipe particularly a spicy one!

Here is how you make it …. You only need about ten minutes…

Ingredients:

3/4 Lemons [not waxed] plus extra lemons for the juice

5 – 6 heaped teaspoons of salt [sea salt or Kosher]

Plus extra lemon juice for topping up the jar with fluid. [You can also use a bit of cooled boiled water to top the jar up so that the lemons are always covered]

Method

1. Trim ‘nubs’ [ends] off both ends of the lemon

2. Quarter the lemons ¾ of the way through the lemon leaving one end attached to the 4 quarters

3. Heap a teaspoon of salt into your pint jar… [Other sizes are available but you will have to adjust the recipe accordingly]

4. Put a teaspoon of salt into the lemon and pop it into the jar and then another teaspoon of salt on top of the upturned lemon. And repeat the process with the other lemons

5. Fill the jar with lemon juice and top up with cooled boiled water where necessary, making sure that the lemons are completely submerged

6. Keep the jar at room temperature for 3 days upturning the jar every time you pass…

7. After 3 days put the jar in the fridge for the next 3-4 weeks taking it out from time to time for a bit of a jiggery shake … After that you are good to go ….

Right off to do some more photography … I might try and mix some black & white car pictures into the gentlemen style interior design club..too.. What do you think? So you are thinking what recipe you would use this with… Any! But in homage to my twitter friend in Turkey … How about a bit of easy cook Turkish Style Chicken??

Come on it is summer … So who cares about measures.. Make it free hand …

Chicken – Legs or thighs

Olive Oil

Onion & Garlic

Preserved Lemon

Anchovies

Olives

Chilli

Herbs

Seasoning to taste…

Cook on the hob or in the oven ….

Tip: Make sure you brown the skin of the chicken and cook it skin side up!

Sides

Bean, tomato & onion salad topped with a soft cooked egg..

Pan fried potatoes, sprinkled with salt & smoked paprika

What about a bit of Turkish Lavas bread.. If you don’t fancy making that then a good flat bread to mop up the juices … Delicious …

I know that the title, A Quick Lunch in France is a contradiction in terms, but stick with me on this… Over here in
the UK it might be a ‘tad’ early for this recipe but bearing in mind the weather predicted for this bank holiday weekend.. This is what I will
be eating.. Langoustine.. For me it is never too early for this recipe nor too late for that matter! Way back in the day I lived and worked in
Northern France with my then partner, now husband on a project that was frankly eye opening in terms of how different cultures operate within the
interior design and construction business, And lunch! To be blunt there was no comparison between them … To give you one example; the British
workforce we took over there with us, would sit down for their strict hour long lunch break with their white sliced plastic bread, which as you
might appreciate, was not easy to obtain from the local boulangerie, so they had to retreat for this delicacy to the out of town Supermarche, and
even then they would complain that the bread did not taste like the bread from home! The obvious seemed to escape them that we were in France!

One of our fine band of merry men even once went into the local Boulangerie and requested a Cornish pastie! Having been met with complete confusion
from the French staff.. He came out of the shop and shouted across the road to all of us who were sat at the French Cafe opposite. “I don’t
understand this country they don’t even have Cornish Pasties and they call themselves a bakery!” Scandalous!

On site, the British band of workman would sit huddled together at lunchtime peeling their way through sweaty sandwiches that were stuck to the
cling film in a sort of congealed mass, complaining about the quality of the cheese in ‘this country’... Their beverage of choice was of course
tea that you could stand a spoon in such was the strength! And they would observe ‘the little known to them Frenchman’ form a safe distance.
The French workers would arrive at work in general at least hour and half later than the British workforce. The Brits would stop for lunch
at 1pm, sharp…

The French workforce would meander around the site in the morning making either appreciating sounds at what was going on or tutting noises with
the obligatory ‘non’ word or even the odd ‘merde’! Come 11:30am the French workforce would
down tools and return to their vans, out of the back these burly Breton’s would retrieve their large baskets, beautifully covered in a red
chequered table clothes and then search for the perfect shady spot in order to set out their luncheon fair.

The table cloth would be spread out in the appropriate place and out of the basket the produce would be laid out with meticulous precision, always
with a French baguette in pride of place. Reaching into the bottom of the basket out would come the picnic stove, which was duly lit. Then
for the next hour the site would be tormented by the most beautiful smells of French cuisine being created from scratch with the freshest of
materials… The British looking on in a sort of bemused wonderment..

Most of these Frenchmen would have the minimum of three courses, which were all eaten at leisure each complimented by a small bottle of wine to
enhance the flavour of each course… Building site or not .. This was style..

The Brits would reluctantly peel away from this vision of culinary beauty and return to work, leaving their French counterparts to continue amiably
with their feast…Finally having had their fill, they would throw the leftover meat to the neighbour’s dog that had wandered up the lane
having been lured by the beautiful smell of the cooking.. Carefully they would pack away their basket and return it to their van, before perhaps
putting in another hour or two of relaxed work on the site… The British workforce carried on regardless in the heat of the day, until
the five o’clock when they would down tools in line with the British deadline…

As the months wore on, slowly there became a little more ‘entente cordiale’ between the two workforces and although none of the Brits would be
caught with a Bunsen burner cooking their own grub, certainly their application of French cuisine and lifestyle was growing on them.. Not least
two of the British men managed to increase the population of the local village by impregnating two of the women.. ‘entente cordiale’ indeed…

Where are we in all this luncheon behaviour, I hear you ask … Well mostly we were on site first thing in the morning and then around lunchtime
we would disappear off to negotiate on various materials and furniture deals for the project… This sojourn would always include stopping
of for lunch at some beautiful location… Hard life this! Quite often our trails through the local brocantes and flea markets would lead
us to the sea front.. Yes I know a very, very hard life! We would rock up to a restaurant on the sea front opposite the beach or harbour for
our ‘le dejeuner’..

If you think we are having a too “cushty” time of it… I have to tell you that it is impossible to work between 12 noon and 2pm in the afternoon,
everything shuts for a long leisurely lunch. This being Brittany, the actual closing time was more like 11.30am - 2.30 – 3pm! So what else
can you do but eat!... This is France..

I will eat any fish I love it and also anything with the good old French Fries! And a carafe of wine… Has to be done, but my all-time favourite,
was and is Langoustine… In one of our favourite restaurant in Cancale, they did a version of Langoustine with garlic, hint of chilli
and cream.. It was just divine …

There are so many tales from our time in France, I will tell you in another story, sometime soon… But here is my recipe for this weekend..
“Vive la France”…. Prendre Plaisir…. [Enjoy!]

Ingredients for Langoustine…

Garlic

A pinch of sea salt - plus a little pinch more!

freshly ground black pepper

Olive Oil

Butter

Langoustines

lemon juice , to taste

Ingredients for Spiked Toms...

Vine Tomatoes

Garlic

Olive Oil

Crushed Chilli

Sides…

Mayonnaise

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Virgin olive oil

Capers

Chopped Gherkins

lemon juice - to taste

More Sides…

French Bread

French Fries

French beans buttered

More & Extra Sides…

Wine….

Look it could not get any simpler than this!

You know how to prepare the French bread… “Just cut it and bite!”

Chips &/or French Fries.. Well this depends on how you like them, whatever is easy for you, which can range from oven chips to fat home cooked
potatoes wedges, or the ubiquitous French Fries.. My favourite.. Whichever it is just time them to be ready for the main event…

Blanch or steam the French beans until they are al dente. Once cooked plunge into a bowl of cold iced water, to keep the colour whilst you prepare
the other ingredients.

Mix together all the ingredients for the mayonnaise sauce -Sides…And put into a serving bowl… Easy …

Whether you cook on the Barbeque or on the hob, heat the three pans, first one on the heat – Add the oil and the tomatoes, cook with a bit offoil
over them, to fast track the process, after a couple of minutes add the chilli and the garlic, keep an eye out to make sure the ingredients
don’t catch, season to taste. Heat the second pan for the Langoustine slosh in the olive oil and butter as it melts add the garlic and the
Langoustines, I don’t like to overcook the garlic, so I add it early. Cook them for 2-3 minutes. Half way through cooking the Langoustine,
drain the French beans and add them to the third heated pan with the butter and cook fast, flipping when necessary. Take all three pans straight
from the barbeque to the table… The juices in the pans are wonderful to dunk your bread in… Don’t for get to squeeze in a little
lemon juice…. And as they say ….

I am writing this blog a bit prematurely, in fact it was not a story I would have under normal circumstances put on my site, but I feel my hand has been
somewhat forced; by a newspaper article that went viral… About a poor old eccentric pensioner who tried to turn his drab bungalow into a Venetian
Palace. You should know I am rolling my eyes right now! So here, I am going to “modify” the true tale to fit my sites demographic! The reality of my
childhood is somewhat more complicated and resembles something of a black farce! I will tell that story another time… Here .. I feel the need
to defend myself, my mother and brother who have once again been written out of our own history that was so ‘endemic’ to all our lives. I should point
out that neither my mother or brother, have any part in this post it is strictly from my point of view … But I want to put the story of Dutch
Gardens - ‘straight’ it is part of who I am and I refuse to be simply anesthetized from the equation that is/was my life!

“Just because a picture happens to be erotic, does not make it pornographic”

Abigail’s Party by Mike Leigh

I was alerted by a family member to an article that appeared in a national paper about the house I grew up in, by
the time I read the feature… It had gone viral.. ”How I turned my £13,500 bungalow in Staines into a £4 million Venetian Palace” … At first … I was shocked by the article.. I mean I know the story well .. And I never thought the old boy would sell the place as it is central
to his life, his existence, nothing else matters to him apart from that house – Dutch Gardens, he has given up and lost everything to build this monument
to himself… Some would rename it – The Hammer House of Horrors, particularly if you happen to be one of the neighbours! As he has been building
there for the last 50 years relentlessly.. The man at the centre of this spin is Mr Trevor Wynne-Jones, how do I know him? .. He is my father…
Although for various reasons we are very much estranged.. But that is another much more complex story..

“If you knew the power of the dark side .. I am your father… “

Star Wars – Darth Vader

Here is the original article which is very good by Fred Redwood for the Telegraph … I think his comment … A first class fake! Speaks volumes!

So let me tell you a bit about the current Dutch Gardens, which as the article suggests is as far away from Italy particularly in terms of a Venice location
… It is stuck in between two large towns called Staines and Slough, that is not a particularly inviting start. Granted there is water at the
property more than is required at times and the River Thames runs on the other side of the road, but it is not quite the same as Venice and you rarely
see a Gondola! However this so called Venetian Palace, built by a self-obsessed megalomaniac, does indeed have its own versions of Tintern Abbey, Rapunzel’s
Tower and Dutch Architecture, the Gothic windows which are newly sited next to French style doors, suits of armour and paintings copied from the old
masters in oils in the style of fresco’s on the walls; not to forget to mention the hideous commissioned ill proportioned copies of paintings of monumental
battles with Trevor sitting at the helm… I cannot tell you how funny I find these paintings.. Everyone that worked for Trevor is in these paintings
including family members, even though some requested not to be in the pictures, that made no difference to Trevor you either bend to his will or you
were fired! .. If you look at them it is obvious who is in Trevor’s favour and who is not.. I should point out that I am not in any of the paintings
as I am Trevor’s least favourite and he had long since air brushed me out of his life!

The current decoration and design of Dutch Gardens is eclectic to say the least, whatever takes Trevor’s fancy he builds, whatever he wants he does.. Simple..
Trevor’s every whim is indulged, he has been building at this development continuously since he purchased it in the late 1960’s.. Trevor’s passion
for knocking things down and rebuilding is legendary he gets bored of things/people and so just moves on to the next thing/person… Don’t get
me wrong, Trevor has an ability to see and recreate architecture, but he spins from one design to another and thus creates a mishmash of designs all
fighting for their place against each other… Losing any sense of style or cohesion and more often than not he will push these design conceptions
to their limit so that it no longer works. Most things became a parody of themselves.

As a teenager teetering on my high stilettos, swearing under my breath as I tried to make it unscathed to the front door without falling or shredding the
leather from my shoes on the London cobbles that Trevor had laid with such undulations and gaps between as to make the cobbles impossible to walk on
… Really the only thing that was lacking in this particular phase of his design creation of the Dickensian London cobble streets was his impression
of Dick van Dijk singing ‘Me ol Bamboo’ as he tap dances down the walkways chasing after Mary Poppins!

“Toad talked big about all he was going to do in the days to come”

Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

The property was purchased for £12,500, in 1968, by my young Nouveau Riche parents, they saw it as a massive stepping stone to improve on their lives and
make a new base for their family, but most importantly to fulfill their dreams. And why not! They were up and coming and my mother was certainly nubile,
they were taking on and embracing a new world of opulence on a scale that they had never experienced before. Prior to the purchase of Dutch Gardens,
we lived in a two bedroom second floor flat in a house in Finchley, North West London. This was certainly a change in circumstances for us all.

When I first set eyes on Dutch Garden as a young child; yes it was a pretty dowdy pebble dash bungalow but it was surrounded by overgrown gardens that
reminded me of the film Secret Garden, it was all very exciting and to me the house was enormous, full of dark corridors and rooms that smelt of rotting
damp; it reminded me of the Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho; I speak retrospectively here as I had not at that time yet seen the film, my parents were
‘way out there’ but not that far, well not at that time anyway!! Dutch Gardens was owned by two old ladies…. I had
no idea we were going to live in this place … I just saw it as another old house that my parents were looking at, it seemed to me, at the time
that we spent an inordinate amount of time viewing old musty houses and having tea on the lawns with strange people, this particular tea party was
not much different than the others except we had tea and sandwiches in the old ladies small sitting room.. Having got bored of the adult conversation
… I was let out of the rickety old French windows into the gardens to explore on my own… My elder brother had been recently exiled off
to a boarding school and so I was somewhat bereft and had to make my own entertainment…This I have never had a problem with!

The bungalow was set in the middle of the plot and there was endless paving stone walkways to follow through the rambling gardens. Eventually I came to
the corner of the garden were there was an old wooden gate covered in cobwebs, it was clear that it had not been opened in many years, I peeked through
the wooden key hole and there appeared to be a gravelled drive on the other side and a few houses. This drive was actually the back entrance to the
property that had not been used in many years, but all was about to change and this little drive way was about to be subject to relentless building
delivery lorries that would cause great controversy including punch-ups between irate neighbours and workmen, not least on one occasion a neighbour
pouring boiling fat over a delivery lorry engine, which inevitable, started yet another punch up… All in a normal day at Dutch Gardens and the
pattern of how we lived our lives.

After peeking through the old door, I forged my way between the perimeter fence and a thick high hedge and followed the route for a while until I could
not stand being whipped in the face with any more sticky spider’s webs so I made a break for it under a hole in the hedge back into the main part of
the garden. Utopia!! I came across a large collection of animal pens and even better a horse stable, every child’s dream even though all the huts and
cages were empty. I could now hear my parents calling for my return, I chose to ignore their polite calls, I was not to be removed from my investigations!
After a few more calls of my name,they seemed to be getting closer, I decided to continue on my quest and move forward along another path around the
other side of the house away from them, I picked up speed in order to make sure that I saw as much of this property as possible, I was now running
toward the most beautiful purple flowering tree with enormous tendrils dangling down the intertwining branches. In the middle of this beautiful creature
was an arch and I made my way through it to find myself back at the front of the house.. I now know that this magnificent specimen was a very
old and impressive Wisteria, which was kept in the gardens until the gardener over watered it one year and it died of those injuries.

“We all go a little mad sometimes..”

Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock

So, my bourgeoisie parents, having purchase their new property, went on a frenzy of major renovation. They knocked down and rebuilt most parts of the property
within pretty much the same footprint of the original building but on a grander scale. They were creating their perfect dream home. And why not? The
‘new’ Dutch Gardens was in the style of a 1970 – 1980 Spanish Hacienda. I mean there is a theme going on here! How many other countries architectural
influences can we include in this property? The old bungalow had an enormous ‘lounge’ situated next to the small sitting room that we had had tea in
with the old ladies. The large lounge had a shiny polished wooden floor, which my brother and I made the most of before it was demolished, by sliding
up and down on the floor boards, before we complained of being covered in splinters… This large lounge and its small sister the sitting room
next door was kept and modernised fully, with floor to ceiling panelled windows and shag pile carpets and the ubiquitous 1970 style purpose built bar
in the corner of the room… Which was slightly unusual as my parents did not really drink at the time although later Trevor became rather partial
to a nice warm ‘little hock’ … Or even the odd bottle of ‘Blue Nun’ …

Like all houses built near the River Thames, the building regulations stated that the property had to be elevatedfour foot above ground level, to prevent
flooding … This afforded an enormous amount of interesting opportunities for me when I looked down before the floor boards were laid, I would
see large rats down there dead and alive. Very exciting when you are young, at the time I had not developed enough other hobbies to keep me occupied!

The rebuild took just over three years and we would travel backward and forward from our flat in London, to this large house set in three quarters of an
acre of land in the country. We never once slept there overnight as back then the commute was largely without the traffic troubles that it suffers
today so the journeys were easy. Whilst I was at Dutch Gardens I spent most of my time playing by myself in the large garden mostly in the water sprinkler
that my mother had brought to the house to entertain me. On occasions the workmen played with me, throwing me in the air when no-one was checking on
them and I ate more than my fair share of egg sandwiches sitting in the old horse stables in the garden.

When I got too wet and cold I was despatched by my mother to change in the old pantry which was small and three steps down from the level of the main house,
ignoring the rules about the water table and potential flooding! This room contained shelves with chicken net fronted cupboards in which there were
old empty jam jars with their lids in neat piles and other empty dusty containers relics of a life lead before we purchased the premises, the jam jars
were repatriated to my paternal grandmother who was an avid jam maker. In the restyle this small room was converted into the boiler room, were I was
again despatched some years later to do my ceramic enamelling on an electric kiln, with the washing hanging over my head. Considering the electric
fired kiln issue and that I was only ten, by today’s standard there seems to be a health and safety issue here... But that was never a consideration
for my parents.. I was out of sight and therefore out mind! But it worked for me … Nothing was normal in my life…

While the house was under reconstruction, one of the places that I was not allowed to go near was two very large barrels in the corner of the garden, behind
the garage… My name is Natalie and therefore I am naturally inquisitive and rarely to be put off the scent, particularly if I was asked not
to look…I had to look … Obviously!! ..Of course I was going to inspect the barrels when no one was there to tell me off… I realised
as I got a closer to the barrels, not least because of the smell… That they were the workmen’s toilets… It occurs to me now that perhaps
the budget could not stretch to a Portaloo? Quite disgusting!

“It was as though the world had had a fresh coat of paint, and every heart acquired a store of illusions that made the burden of life less hard to bear.”

Clochemerle by Gabriel Chevallier

As the house transformed in the very early years, and when my brother was occasional released from his new school, we would play together on what was a
building site. Once, we were allowed to go upstairs into what was to become my parents’ bedroom. We were told that we were only to stand on the joists
as the floor boards had not yet been laidand the plasterboard of the ceiling below would not be strong enough to take our weight. My brother being
oldersprinted across the joists to investigate the rooms. I attempted to keep up, my only problem was that I could not span the joists as easily, being
much smaller. Having negotiated yet another joist, without falling through, I glanced up and thought that my brother had stepped on the ceiling boards,
brilliant I thought and immediately did the same. It was instant, the ceiling gave away with the most almighty crack and I descended through it, hearing
my mother scream from below as she fled not knowing what was happening… I landed cross legged on the floor and looked up to see my brother’s
face peeking through the hole I had left above, it was brilliant…. Despite the trouble I was in.… This accident created yet another explosive
tantrum from Trevor, not because I might have been hurt, but because I had damaged the ceiling.. Trevor was and is the most incredible tantrum thrower
on a spectacular level… To see his temper tantrums is to behold.. A man who is out of control in his rage! Quite terrifying at times, albeit
we were used to it… I come from a long line of over-reactors!

On another occasion early one morning… My brother and I came across one of the many motorised diggers that were used in the landscaping of the gardens.
My mother is the most wonderful landscape designer as you can see from what is left of the gardens in the newspaper articles. As luck would have it
some kind person had left the keys in the ignition, so my brother decided that we should take it for a spin … I eagerly clambered into the back
of the digger … As my brother took the driver’s seat.. We were having great fun doing a tour of the garden at speed, enjoying the moment then
my brother came up with the ingenious idea of driving the digger up one of the large mounds of sand and building gravel, obviously to add a bit of
extra excitement and danger to the fun! It was going quite well until the sand gave way under the pressure and weight of the vehicle and it flipped
over sending me flying into the air out of harm’s way but trapping my brother underneath… You know those moments as a child when you hope that
if you shut your eyes tightly for a second or two, that when you open them again very quickly all would be back to normal and the damage you had just
created would have gone away.. This was one of those moments.. But it was not to be the digger was definitely upside down and we were in trouble! My
brother then emerged with a bloody nose from under the digger, but otherwise unscathed, as he got to his feet, he let out any number of swear words
to illustrate his feelings on the matter… Which secretly I was very impressed by, I saw this as being the height of growing up!…. However
there was no way we could rectify this problem and I can assure you that this evoked yet another ’Mount Vesuvius’ explosive tantrum from Trevor ..
Perhaps fair under the circumstances! To some degrees ..

“Anyone for a bit of Denis Roussos?”

Abigail’s Party by Mike Leigh

When we finally moved in to Dutch Gardens in the early 1970’s, I had assumed we were going to live in a tent in the dining room as to me the house was
so big, the dining room was about the size of our flat in London therefore a perfect fit, and I could not conceive in my mind that we would need all
this extra space, apart from to play in … It came as a surprise that I had my own room, predictably painted in a revolting shade of pink, a
colour I would never have chosen, then or now! … But this was my parents dream not mine… Mostly the house was finished, their Pantile
Spanish Hacienda dream house was about to take wings, it was really quite “on trend” at the time, believe it or not, as my mother was involved with
the design there was cohesion and a trendy flow to the house… Venice was “still” a long way off and there were no medieval suits of armour anywhere,
and most importantly we lived above ground… Not in the subterranean dungeons that you see in some of the pictures in the article..

The outside rendered walls were painted white with floor to ceiling panelled windows in every room, some walls were just windows, all very on trend …
It had 3 inch high white shag pile carpets in the big lounge and my parents’ bedroom, so trendy was my mother that there were shag pile carpets in
their bathroom and that carpet went up the walls! .. As Austin Powers would say, Shagadelic …. Yeah Baby!!

This carpet however, later became the bane of my family’s life when I took up sewing and continually dropped pins on the floor … Never to be seen
again until someone stepped on them with bare feet.. Mostly my brother was afflicted with this torture, usually on one of his exeats from school, on
one occasion the pin had embedded itself so deeply into his heel, that Trevor was forced to remove it with plyers and I was banned from doing any further
sewing in any areas that were carpeted.. Of course I ignored this command, as no one was ever there to inforce this new and in my view largely irrelevant
rule. However the shag pile caught me out too, on one of many occasions when I sneaked into my mother’s dressing room to paint my toe nails with her
red polish.. When I swapped feet to paint the other foot, I did not notice that I was wiping the polish from the first foot all over the carpet…When
I saw the mess I had made of the white carpet, I came up with the genius idea of trimming the carpet with my mother’s nail scissors to hide the damage
except I got caught in the act by my mother! Not so Groovy Baby!!

“Oh lovely” she says “Cos Laurence likes a drop of wine, actually. Oh it’s Beaujolais.. Fantastic! .. Won’t be a sec, I’ll just pop it in the fridge”

Abigail’s Party by Mike Leigh

My mother, a traditional follower of fashion, saw my father at this stage in their relationship more as a Roger Moore than an Austin Powers, which when
I think about it is quite sweet as he is only half the size of Roger and does not really have the same physique? It must have been love as she would
dress Trevor in Roger’esque style Safari suits, with the same comb over hair style, albeit Trevor’s hair was sparser… Trevor would wear this
suit with his self-styled pocket watch and chain which sort of spoilt the look! My mother’s style and costumes became the stuff of magazine articles,
whatever you saw in Vogue or Tatler … You would see on my mum .. A stunningly beautiful woman, with her own agenda… Most importantly
they were enjoying being the ‘it’ people of Dutch Gardens and so they should have been they had worked hard to get where they were… Every weekend
they would be designing the garden or a part of the house or visiting country homes or stately gardens… This was their life and Dutch Gardens
was at the centre of it…

All the mod trends of the moment were applied and added to the design, including avocado suites in the bathrooms, including bidets, which were never used,
well not for their actual purpose … I found them a source of great entertainment.. The sprinklers in the bottom of the pans were so powerful
that they would water the whole room, subsequently I was banned from using them! As it would drench the carpets in the bathrooms… Can you imagine
carpets in a bathroom now …. Yuck … All the tapsand faucets were gold plated, which very quickly discoloured and corrodedcovering the
metalwith unsightly lime spots, which ultimately made them hard to use…

In the morning room next to the corridor kitchen was a glass circular dining table supported by tripod chrome legs and matching black leather chairs, which
were lethal if you leaned too far back as they would slide on the tiled black and white floor sending the sitter flying … There was a lurid
pink wall, and the very height of modern ‘chic’ was the 3D handmade wall paper of different sized pebble protrusions all painted in white.. My parents
understandably would go mad when my young cousins came to stay and delighted in punching and squashing the protrudingpebbles… It was my job,
with the aid of a screw, to pull theegg box pebbles back into shape, then the permanent on site staff would come in and repaint and fill the damage
… It was also my job to repaint the chips in black and white floor tiles in the morning room, the damage being caused by the movement of thechrome
chairs legs rubbing backward and forward over the surface of the tiles.

The house was full of Casa Pupo items, there was at the time a shop in London which my parents frequented, the house was stuffed with their lamps, vases,
object ‘dart including metal bird cages and waist height china wild cats and snow leopards, all dotted around the house, which after parties would
need to be washed down as my young cousin insisted on feeding them with cake.. In the wooden panelled dining room, which looked a bit like a set from
the programme Columbo, one of Trevor’s favourite TV series at the time. In the room there was a black and white synthetic floor with inlaid black dots,
it was synthetic because my mother having seen a TV programme had investigated into getting a special treatment for the floor, which involved coating
the floor with a substance that would allow it to be used on occasions as an ice skating ring! This was in the period when my mother had visions of
turning me into a top British ice-skater.. My grandmother had been billeted into knitting me a red ice-skating dress, which was hideous and stretched
when it got wet because I kept falling over! I was forced to take weekly skating lessons, which I was extremely bad at and hated particularly as it
was not my idea in the first place! … Thankfully eventually my mother gave up on this plan and turned to other ideas and formulas to plan out
my future! And there is another story!

On the top of the black and white floor was a large Casa Pupo vivid green and white fringed rug, placed on top of this was the massive wooden candy twist
refectory table, purchased from Harrods, which was now fast becoming their new ‘go to’ corner shop… Trevor was making money by the bucket load…
My ever more wealthy parents, were making their mark on the world and Dutch Gardens was at the heart of their lives? Good luck to them I say ..

“That is the last time I play the Tart for You – Jerry” Margot – The Good Life

Later in Dutch Gardens design progress we had a full time architect who had an office attached to the garage, my mother worked closely with him whilst
the never ending gardens and house works continued, changed and progressed. My parent’s lives were beginning to take different routes but Dutch Gardens
continued to be their great love and perhaps the only thing that now cemented their fracturing relationship. The landscaping was now on the most epic
level, with diggers and machinery excavating / creating more waterfalls and ponds, into which, my mother was introducing Koi Carp shipped in from aboard
at great cost. To my delight all had to be named!

One day a selection of mature trees was delivered to the end of the road because the lorry could not make it down the road as the trees were too tall and
where knocking the overhead cables out, Dinky the gardener was dispatched to collect them, however my mother negated to advise him that they were full
size and he turned up with a wheel barrow instead of the fork lift truck!

Everything was on full scale.. Bling! They never stopped working on the place, it was relentless, and the hammering, drilling, digging and sawing continued;
the gangs of workmen, the endless changes went on and on. My parent’s design styles were beginning to rupture and they no longer saw eye to eye, on
most things. And the neighbours hated us with a passion.. At this stage it had been over eighteen years of continuous building works .. Little did
the neighbours know … There were many, many, more years of building to come… Which continues to go on to this day….

Trevor was sighted in two divorce cases, by neighbours due to the stress of them permanently living next to a building site. One weekend we were barricaded
into the house by the neighbours who in their frustration erected concrete bollards to blockade the delivery entrance to the house. Undeterred but
furious Trevor ripped them out and threw them back into the neighbours gardens, another quiet Sunday Lunch!… But to me it was all just normal
…. Sort of … On the surface at least!

“There is nothing in human affairs that is a true subject for ridicule. Beneath comedy lies the ferment of tragedy; the farcical is but a cloak for coming catastrophe”

Clochemerle by Gabriel Chevallier

Trevor decided to close up the back entrance to the property and replace the gate to the back drive, it was time for him to seek his revenge on the neighbours.
He built the base of the tower that you see in the newspaper article. A very large rockery was already built around the ‘Tower’ with stepping stones
to the back entrance. The entire garden was flood lit in colour lights. It was the ultimate party house and it was at that time still alive.. Albeit
that more cracks were beginning to show.. Trevor put in a planning application for a forty-five foot high‘look out’ tower which was to be constructed
over the back entrance of the house, the prospect of which, understandably terrify and agitate the neighbours.. Once again! He wrote to every house
in Wraysbury, the area, looking for support of his design and planning application, enclosing a stamped addressed envelope for their response! We were
inundated with press attention, again! Dutch Gardens was once again on the national news, everyone had an opinion about it. We were door stepped by
press as we left the house, everyone likes a nutcase …. The Telegraph article success proves that...

At the planning meeting to determine the planning application, which was held in nearby town of Windsor, police had to be called to deal with the crowds
baying for Trevor’s blood and more punch up’s ensued between rivalling camps in support and against. We made all the papers and the press the next
day! One Westminster MP who was interviewed by the press stated, “The whole thing is getting more like a scene from Clochemerle” –
A French comic novel written about the battle between the Catholic and Republic locals over the erection of a urinal being built in the local square!”
Very apt! Finally the planners decided that Trevor could have a 25 foot tower, much to the dread of all the neighbours and who could blame them! Once
he had finally got permission, Trevor did what he always does and lost interest in the project, until some years later. …More divorces and new
sets of neighbour replaced the last, like a never ending supply of new people for Trevor to irritate. My mother as ever was social climbing and moving
on to her ‘new’ life seeing a better future for herself.. She wanted to move on to bigger and better things. Trevor saw this as a betrayed and refused
to be moved and so the building went on … As the relationship faltered..

Massive pumps were incorporated into the ponds to create the streams which ebbed and flowed night and day. Super powered switches were wiredinto a control
panel housed in a cupboard in the house so at the touch of a button you could ramp up the volume of the water and the noise should you wish…
It was very Rock & Roll! ‘Knock me down with a feather.. Clever Trevor…Ian Dury & the Blockheads’… As wild young things.. My brother and I took advantage of all the facilities whenever our parents were not there; although my mother did sometimes
join in our partying.. The house continued to evolveand devolve as Trevor began demolishing finished area’s to create his new found artistic design
tendencies, this was a cause of much tension between my parents … Amongst other things!

After a visit to a golf course Trevor noted the beautiful lushgreen fairways, despite it being a very hotdry summer, all made possible by the golf course
irrigation system. He decided they had to have the very same “commercial” sprinkler system, installed at Dutch Gardens. Trenches were dug into the
lawn and pipes were laid, at strategically placed intervals prehistoric lookingsprinkler headswould emerge from the ground whenever the system was
switched on. The first attempt at running the sprinklers, which was all very state of the art as it was unforgettable… The ground literally
vibrated with the power of the water, there was the most wonderful whoosh sound as the long neck sprinklers emerged from the lawn making ticking sound
as they rotated backward and forward. All very exciting the only problem was, no-one thought to investigate the power of the sprinklers or the coverage
of water they would emit.. They were after all designed to water the vast acreage of the golf coursenot asuburban garden… To late … So
powerful were the jets of water, they were knocking the garden staff over like nine pins as they tried to run away from the soaking .. The sprinklers
built up to full power… Pandemonium … The window cleaner who had just finished cleaning the vast amounts of windows, was nowbeingpinned
to the window panes by the force the water. Leaks of water were entering the house as the sheer pressure of the water was now unstoppable. I watched
from the large lounge as water smashed through some of the panes of glass. I could hear my mother screaming in hysteria… Eventually someone
managed to get to the switch and turn the system off…. The water jets from the sprinklers slowly decreased in power, the ticking sound slowed
up and then the spouts disappeared back into the ground… Dutch Gardens very own Tsunami …

It subsequently transpired that one sprinkler put on top of the house would have watered the entire property, Trevor had installed eight in just a quarter
of the garden! More complaints filed in from the neighbours, as we had soaked them, one man had left his open topped sports car outside his home only
to come out and find it filled with water! Another day with all the madness!Over time the sprinklers would periodically have a mind of their own or
Trevor would take revenge on someone and my mother would issue further apologies to the neighbours as their barbeques were ruined.

In my late teens on the long summer’s evenings, my friends and I would sit in the grounds, smoking and drinking and just having fun, enjoying the environment
with the haze of the outdoor lighting and the sound of the waterfalls all around us. Trevor would return home from work hear us laughing in the garden
and set the sprinklers off to ruin our fun, he hated anyone enjoying the space.. Everything was only on his terms …. As the sprinklers rained
down on us, we would attempt to run for cover…. Usually into the house … Dripping water all over the place, which would further enrage
Trevor into one of his legendary tantrums…He would evict us all… I was glad.. The house was losing its glory… My mother had moved
on to social engagements of her own and only occasionally lived or visited Dutch Gardens ….. Their relationship like the house was descending
into the stuff of nightmares …

“The Madness of King George” By Alan Bennett

If He swears and indulges in MEANINGLESS DISCOURSE... He will be restrained. If He throws off his bed-clothes, tears away His bandages, scratches at His sores, and if He does not strive EVERY day and ALWAYS towards His OWN RECOVERY... then He must be restrained. George III: I am the King of England.

As Trevor madness and megalomaniacal tendencies became more prevalent and the money continued to roll in, which saturated his wildest dreams, and now there
was nothing and no one to restrain HIM. He was possessed by what he could create constantly changing what he had already created, turning what once
had some cohesion as a fun ‘home’ and transforming it into a gauche pastiche of miss matching homage to Trevor’s ego. It was now the only thing that
Trevor could fully control.. Things that were unfinished remained unfinished … My bedroom for example, had been subject to a number of my mother’s
interior design projects, much to my irritation as I grew up. It was never finished, the new lighting now consisted of a half-finished florescent tube
fittings all around the top of the walls, hidden behind a half finished pelmet that flashed on and off incessantly. When I switched it on the continuous
strobing effect, was like living in George Orwells 1984…

We were all at war …. These were corrosive times.. Yet the building went on …There was no stopping the madness …

Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

“You still wake up sometimes, don’t you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs”

Trevor’s obsession with living underground had taken hold, he continued digging under the house now obsessively, 14 Irish labours dug and dug at any one
time, more skips of soil were dispensed with, more aggravation for the neighbours. Inevitably the hole under the house filled with water. Trevor got
bored again and works stopped and he started digging somewhere else… Where there was once a beautiful landscaped garden now half the garden
was just a collection of big holes filled with water and half finished … Soul destroying for my mother..

I spent a great deal of time on my own in this property, everyone else was always out and about, I was used to my own company. One night, I was sitting
in the big lounge with my stash of snacks ready for the evening, I did this so I didn’t have to venture back into the house, the two dogs who were
with me were going mad, barking, growling, and digging at the shag pile... Dutch Gardens could be a very scary place to be inat night, particularly
as my parents had an aversion to curtains, so you always had the feeling that you were being watched through these enormous floor to ceiling windows.
Which I later found out was exactly what was going on .. But that is another story.

I was trying to ignore the dogs and watch TV but they were not going to have it, fussing and barking, this meant only one thing … I was going to
have to make the very scary run, through the dining room into the hall then hang a quick left into the kitchen to get them some treats to shut them
up, I was not keen … On the TV was a programme called Police 5, presented by Shaw Taylor, it was about catching criminals, this episode was
a special on man dubbed, The Black Panther who had kidnapped a young heiress, it was all quite scary … Suddenly there
was a massive whoosh sound and the floor gave way under me, I was thrown back onto the leatherChesterfield sofa by the force, the dogs shot out the
room screaming and urinating in terror as they ran for cover …The naff 1970’s bar in the corner of the room moved and clunked as the glasses
clattered together from their position on the shelves in protest, dust filled the room then the floor came to a short but abrupt halt and everything
shuddered. Good old Shaw Taylor continued to give details about the Black Panther albeit that the TV had now moved position… I glanced around
the room through the haze of dust nothing in principal had changed, but instinctively I knew it had. I pushed myself off the sofa; Shaw Taylor was
doing his signature sign off of Keep ‘em peeled… Dust was sparkling in the light, looking up I saw a large gash in
the wall above the bar, at some points at least four inches wide, the plaster that had fallen from the crack was now decorating the black bar top.
On the other side of the room was even longer and wider crack, the sliding glazed panel door that separated the lounge from the adjacent small sitting
room was hanging at a slight angle. Looking down at the floor line, there was now a gap were the wall and the floor had divorced each other, the skirting
was splintered and cracked but still attached to the wall but not the floor, the black tile grout, that circled the bar was still attached to the skirting
yet the tiles had remained unseated and scatted haphazardly to the floor. There had been a serious parting of the ways!

What had happened? The team of Irish navvies, Trevor had hired to dig the massive void under the house in order to create the underground dungeon’esque
area, had not adequately propped up the structures and the floor under the house to sufficiently hold the house up! Only a minor detail, but as ever
a crucial one! The water from the nearby River Thames had seeped into the void raising the level of the natural water table. The sheer force of the
water whooshing and swirling around inthe large holehaddestabilised the stone and sand sides of the excavationthusdestabilising the foundations of
this part of the house causing the groundfloor of the house to drop accordingly! Never a dull moment, but this, could not be blamed on me! But none
the less there was the inevitable blood chilling tantrum from Trevor!

As the years rolled on Dutch Gardens imploded asTrevor’s obsession with living like a mole underground continued, digging endlessly under the house to
create his own new space, creating issues with the water table and creating his own artesian well, the pressure of which causing theground water to
increase to such a pressure that it forced the next door neighbours garage out of the ground. All in a day’s work! As you have seen from the article
and VT on the net … Trevor has over the last thirty years created whatever has taken his fancy, with total disregard to some of the most basic
design ethics and lack of care to many people … That said, some of his work is extremely clever … But to me none of it really works..
It looks like a theme park … The only thing that really works is the original bit of the garden and waterfall which was part of the redevelopment
that both my parents undertook … But then it is not my house it is his and this is his baby – Dutch Gardens…

“Well, Clarice have the lambs stopped screaming..?”

The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

This was a house that was once lived in, it was alive it had a pulse and a heart of sorts. Now in my opinion it has descended into one wealthy man’s mental
health issue /disorder.

I hope I have given you a small flavour of what it was like to be part of Dutch Gardens, it was an amazing house of its time and its period, and it was
a credit to both my parents despite the darkness that lurked in every corner. I have a lot to be grateful for, for a start … I got out alive
with a story or ten to tell…. Dutch Gardens in its ‘hay day’ featured in a number of television adverts and was very on trend for its time despite
its very odd location in Wraysbury or Toilets-Ville … Which was my pet name for the area as a teenager ….

My mother had moved on, as had I. Trevor became more entrenched and more obsessed in his madness like the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland, said. “I knew who I was this morning but I’ve changed a few times since then”… He
has made his way through tens of millions of pounds, recreating a property that he loves and turning his back on all else … And in that vein
… Everyone should be able to create their own madness …. To a point ….

“You would have to be half mad to dream me up”

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Having read the article Trevor has once again changed the facts, to me it was like we were all airbrushed out of our own lives. As the article pointed
out Trevor has based himself on Napoleon, a man who was exiled from all reality; and was eventually confined to the island of Saint Helena to live
in a rat infested house called Longwood. Napoleon managed to persuade the Governor of the island to allow him to build a new Longwood House, a new
beginning, if you will, but like Trevor he negated to reflect on the past? Napoleon died just before the house was completed and after the Second World
War … It was demolished…. Napoleon is remembered as a tyrant ….

I am blessed with three beautiful children, a girl and two boyz, this means a house full of teenagers, for some reason they do not live in the same
time zone as us! Therefore once they are on holiday away from the confines of a normal timetable.. It becomes an epic to try and feed them all.
So what can happen is the fridge gets raided at all times of the day and night, and their choice of food is what is ever easiest and quickest to
quell their instant hunger! One will just fill up on cheese, another on crisps and biscuits and one on endless bowls of cereal… This is
of course is fine for the occasional meal but not good on a daily basis… Particularly as their mother likes to cook!

So here is my tasty sausage and beans recipe, it can be cooked in advance left in the fridge and then reheated in the microwave at any time of the
day …. And if you are going to serve this to adults look out for my tip below!

Sausage & Beans – My Way!

Sausages – any type you like

Onions – quartered

Baked Beans

Tined Tomatoes

Tomato puree

Squirt of Tomato ketchup

2-3 Garlic cloves

Paprika

Mustard powder

Salt & Pepper

This is a one pot cook, no ‘faff’ recipe. Cook the sausages in oil in the pan give them a good healthy colour, bung in the onions,
and cook letting the ingredients stick a little to the pan, brings out the flavour. Don’t let the sausages and onion burn, when it looks like they
are going catch, pour in a little water, stir making a sort of gravy out of the fluid. Once the sausages are cooked….

Add the rest of the ingredients. Heat through and Da-Da it is done!

This is how my children eat it!

In the mornings:- This could mean in the middle of the night in the wee hours!

Heated up with fried eggs on top… And crusty bread…

At Lunch or Dinner:- This is any time after 12 noon…

Heated up – Topped with grated cheese served with chips or fried potatoes and a crisp green salad…

Tip – Conversion for the adults!

Serve with roasted peppers and rice…. And for my husband …. Fresh chillies … You can of course roast chillies
in the conventional way, heating them over a flame until the skins become black and then putting them in a plastic bag to remove their skin…
But this is supposed to be an easy recipe … So for a quick flavoursome way of adding some heat… Cut the chillies into rings cover
them with cider vinegar and add caster sugar to balance the flavours… Let the chillies rest for 20 minutes, to take on more of the flavour…
Delicious sprinkled over the sausage and beans… This chilli recipe can be used with all sorts.. Really lovely with cheese …

To be honest with you … Anything goes with this recipe .. In terms of the ingredients … Whatever you feel in the moment.. I have ‘poshed’ it up on occasions for an easy adult supper… Adding chorizo sausage, chopped fresh herbs… Adding butter beans and kidney beans…
If you reheat the recipe in the oven, it gives the flavours a much deeper expression. Just before serving sprinkle spinach over the top…
Serve with crispy garlic bread and rice …. Delicious ….

And now for a Quick Desert …..

Banana Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

My son is either non stop eating banana’s or he leaves them in the fruit bowl to wither and go black! … Not to worry… ! This is the best
way to deal with them…

250g plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

125g butter or similar

250g caster sugar

4 black bananas – mashed into a bowl – Or what you have

2 eggs – beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

175g chocolate broken into pieces

Heat the oven 180C (350F / Gas 4)

Mix and mash butter, sugar, bananas, eggs, extract.. Don’t over mix.. This recipe is better on the rustic side! Add the dry ingredients
and chocolate with a quick mix and pour into an oiled loaf tin. Bake in the oven for 1 hour 15 minutes or until the skewer test works! Leave to
cool in the tin for about 5 minutes and then turn out… If your children happen to be around you can serve it warm …

In the mornings:-

Serve with butter … With a cup of tea or coffee….

At lunch time or Dinner:-

Serve a slice with vanilla ice-cream …

This cake really lasts well … Well it would if it was not eaten so quickly!

As I have said I loved to cook, I don’t mind what I cook as long as I am cooking….

I don’t eat meat and I can’t eat flour products …. But I don’t care because I can cook them! I have a keen sense of smell and that is how I
flavour my food…. I then have a household of willing participants to check my seasoning … So all is well!

As you might imagine meal times are a bit of a marathon in this house as everyone has slightly different tastes and favourite meals … For me
this is a good thing … It means that every meal time I get to cook many different meals .. Not everyone’s idea of fun … I realise
… But it works for me!

This onion tart can be used for any season and is great if you are entertaining a vegetarian, just melt some goats cheese over the top for extra pizzazz.
The tart works beautifully as an accompaniment to any meat dish and I also used it in packed lunches … So in brief it is a great all-rounder!

The best tip about making this tart is the painting of beaten egg over the base of the tart to stop it having a soggy bottom! A tip for all tarts if
you ask me!

But no it is not one of my recipes it belongs to Delia! Here is the link:

The sauce in the picture is my recipe and it goes beautifully with this zinging tart.

Natalie’s crunchy mayonnaise

Judge the amount of ingredients to suit your needs and the amount of people you are serving.

You don’t have to use mayonnaise, sometimes I use yoghurt! Use what you have nothing is written in stone. Just mix them all to taste. Here is what
I put in!

Mayonnaise

Good glug of Olive Oil

Dijon mustard tsp or so

Squeeze of lemon

Chopped spring onions

Capers

Chopped celery

Cornichon – Gherkins

This sauce, is quick and easy and works so well, with so many other dishes. The caramelised tart is really quite sweet because of the balsamic vinegar.
However if you use this sauce with another meal such as beef or fish, you can sweeten it with a dash of honey or even a squirt of tomato ketchup!
Enjoy X

I am not into cake or chocolate really for that matter... I know … I know… I am a freak of female nature! When I was a child my mother would have made for me the most amazing cakes for my birthdays in a desperate attempt to normalise me into being a standardised female, in her eyes. My mother the ‘Super Model’ loves a cake .. She is one of those breeds of women who can eat any amount of cake without it having any effect on her waistline whatsoever..

….The cakes she had made for me, before it was even fashionable to have cakes made into items/objects that do not resemble cakes at all … I had cakes made in all styles, one was in the shape of pond with frogs seated around the edge, playing musical instruments. This was when I was going through my frog spawn phase; like all children I was fascinated by the change of squidgy, sticky mases of clear baubles containing a tiny black dot that relatively quickly transformed & grew tails & limbs & heads & then jumps out of their containers, springing around our garage attaching themselves to dust in their journey to escape their confinement from me. I loved the cake, but I never wanted to eat it! On another occasion in a determined effort by my mother to bring out a ‘sweet tooth’ in me she had a Hansel & Gretel cake in the shape of the witches house, it was quite beautiful, the roof was covered in smarties held in place with icing sugar, the little house had decorated marzipan panels all around the edge of the chocolate building. Icing sugar icicles hung from the edge of the roof & beautiful handmade summer flowers decorating the garden, all in full bloom …. Yes it was not lost on me that this cake had an issue with its seasons … But it was quite a masterpiece…. Did I eat it? …. ‘No’ … I ate some of the smarties off the roof & took the cake to school, to share the main body of the masterpiece with my school mates …. And many happy teachers….

So despite all my mother’s best efforts … To turn me to the ‘sweet side’ …. It never worked …. I say …. ‘Let me eat cheese!’ …. However I have always loved to make cakes, it was just the need to find someone to eat them for me … I forced these cakes on my friends, boyfriends, the gardeners at my childhood home and the window cleaner, who was extremely partial to a cake and would most often leave the house after polishing the windows, with a sizable chunk of cake for his family wrapped in tin foil for a safe journey home. My mother started to change her view of me … If I could not eat cake .. Then maybe I could make cake .. Best of a bad job … & I can make cake! …

Understandably my husband on the grounds of health and safety, his health and safety, was reluctant to consume entire cakes just as a means to keep his cake cooking wife happy. So I looked for other avenues to consume my passion for cake making… My sister-in-law and niece were always eager to comply, so there was a bonus! When we had our daughter and subsequently two sons, they all had the ability to eat cake, which was a great relief for my mother & me … I would make the most elaborate cakes … Quite ridiculous really … But the children enjoyed the spectacle … Now I am lazy [cake wise] … I just like to make ‘easy’ cakes and this recipe is one I often like to make..

Obviously this flourless cake is ideal for people who love cake but are intolerant to gluten, it is also very much a cake that can be enjoyed by all, that is the beauty of it … I like to make it with dark chocolate [70% solids], however, when we have had an excess of Easter milk chocolate eggs in the past & I became fed up with the children attaching themselves to the ceiling on another sugar high. I would use [steal] the left over chocolate from their eggs to make this cake. Obviously this is not an ideal ingredient for an adult cake, but you can freeze it and bring it out for a children’s/family gathering. [Just be careful how you defrost it].

This cake lends itself for all occasions and seasons, if I want it to look posh over autumn, winter gathering … I hide the natural cracking on the surface of this cake behind some skilfully piped design made from ganache mixed with a bit of icing sugar to make it stiff and take on the shaping of the piping…. In the summer, spring I serve it either just dusted with chocolate powder and cream or adollop of silky ganache over the top allowing it to spill over the edge of the cake in a decadent way & serve it with vanilla ice cream …. Beautiful ….

So the recipe I hear you cry …. Which is taken and slightly adapted by me, as we all do with our favourite foods, to suit our family’s tastes. This recipe is taken from Amy Willcock’s Aga Baking. [Don’t panic you do not need an Aga – it cooks just as well in a conventional oven too!]

Serves 8-10 [I also make this cake in half the size too]

I use a spring bottom tin 22cm 8.5”

Pre-heated oven 180*c / 350*f / gas4

350g good quality dark chocolate, broken into small pieces

175g unsalted butter .. I use whatever I have [don’t panic if you only have salted butter]

6 eggs

235g golden caster sugar [I sometimes use just caster sugar – I am beginning to think I a bit of a cooking slut!]

1. Grease tin.

2. Melt the chocolate & butter together.

3. Whisk the eggs into a frenzy – So they become fluffy & pale.

4. AGA – Roasting oven – 20 minutes, turning the cake half way through cooking. Then transfer into the simmering oven for another 20 minutes. Check the consistency of the cake with a skewer, when you poke the cake some of the cake should come away with the skewer, unlike a ‘normal’ cake! Cool completely in the tin..

5. Conventional Oven – Bake in a bain marie for 45 minutes. Turn off the oven & leave in the oven with the door ajar. Remove from the oven, remove the cake from the bain marie and let it cool in the tin ….

I have thought long and hard about writing about some 'bits' of my life. If I should? .. If I can? Like most people’s lives it has been an interesting journey, particularly with regard to my family and extended family. I have a great memory for detail sometimes the memories are too vivid, however and even better I have a good sense of the bizarre and the humour that is required to go along with it. Some of my stories are very black, but my survival technique is comedy. Turning Grandma into a Mud Pie, is the first of my stories, to be committed to public scrutiny. Here I can introduce you to some of the characters in my life! Enjoy ….. (I hope)…

So welcome to my musings on a mad world …

Turning Grandma into a Mud Pie

Ten years ago, or thereabouts, we were invited
to my favourite aunts home, (my ‘fathers’ sister). Her name is Elvira, she has
an eccentric rambling house outside Brighton, which rather matches her
character. She was going to host a large ‘Jones’ family party, in addition to
which, was to include the final resting ceremony of my grandma's ashes and to
celebrate what would have been her100th birthday. Well as near as dam it! To the senior members of
the Jones family around about that time … Facts
rarely influenced a situation and almost never
get in the way of what they want to do and how they want to present a
particular set of circumstances …… They just make up the pieces to fit and if
they don’t they lie or shout! … To be honest …. I come from a long line of
over-reactors! They only worry about reality if and when it happens! To my
reckoning it would have actually been grandma’s 103rd or 104th birthday .. But
hey-ho!

Grandma passed away at the grand age of
98, whilst me and my husband and our then
two children, we now have three, were on holiday in France. We did not attend
her cremation, but like most of the family cremations it was held at Golders
Green crematorium,all the
organisation was as ever controlled by my biological father, known to me as
Trevor…… I think I was asked by him to call him Trevor, which is his name, when
I was about 13 and it stuck, for many reasons….. Suffice to say that there is a
great deal ofbad
feeling between Trevor and myself! But
when you have money you have control and he was in control of grandma’s
cremation arrangements. But Trevor is not the story today that is for another
time. At the end of the cremation Elvira was handed the ashes until such time
as the family agreed on a final resting place…. The ashes were to be safely
stored at Elvira's and her husband Doug’s sprawling overgrown house for the
next few years. Or so we thought!

So, for this momentous family gathering
various members of the Jones family clan were shipped in from all over the UK and
from far flung corners of the world. The party was to be a two day event… I did not attend the party on the Saturday as
Trevor was attending… He cannot abide to be in my company … And it felt fair to
me to give him and his long term partner Hilary some space with his siblings
and others. My totally eccentric aunt Elvira kindly invited my mother and I to
meet up with the rest of the family on the Sunday, as Trevor would have left the
proceedings. So I took my mother and my nine year old daughter to meet
grandma’s children, my aunts and uncles and her great aunts and uncles. I
thought it would be an exciting occasion for us all … If not illuminating…

Grandma I was told had thirteen
pregnancies and seven surviving children, five boys and two girls. Which, in
itself is quite an achievement as my grandparent’s contempt for each other was
so extreme that they could not bear to be in the same room together, in their
own home, so as not to come across each other, with the exception of bedtime,
she had the front room he had the back room… When they were out together in
public there was a heartfelt and palpable atmosphere of utter disgust between
them… One of my earliest and most
shocking memories of my grandma Doris Margaretta Jones was that she would
regularly have outbursts of a varying pitch and level at my grandfather publically.
Saying in response to any comments he may have made…. “He makes me spit! He
makes me SPIT!” She would during the day repeat this comment with unfettered
distain toward him… As a young child this was quite shocking and alarming, as
to me grandma was a pillar of society and the matriarch of the family, whom I
felt safe around, which in my childhood was rare at times. To me she had the highest
moral values. It was out of character to ever imagine that grandma would lower
herself to spit… Like a navvy in the street! Simply shocking! … Although being the type
of child I was, I was kind of excited to see her do it and wonder what effect
it might have on my mother’s sensibilities … Wicked child I am! I can confirm that to the best of my
knowledge grandma never did spit and over the many years I just came to accept
that is what she said when grandpa was around..… Another childhood dream of
seeing her spit was dashed!

It was a further source of equal
bewilderment to me that grandpa, with equal regularity, when we were all out, in a
restaurant, in an airport or any public place, he would hold up his hand and point
out the signs to the Ladies toilets? …Raising his pointed finger at the sign of
the WC and booming at my grandmother ….. “Doris there’s the Lavatory, …..
THERE… The lavatory Doris …The
lavatory’s are there Doris.” I realise now, it was his way to irritate her and
embarrass her…. But as a child it seemed very strange that grandma could not
see and read the signs for herself and why would she not be equally interested
in where the restaurant was, for example? I mean she was partial to a cup of
tea?… Never once did he not do this …. He would then slide up behind me, grab
my arm with the most painful iron like grip, which made my legs buckle under
the pressure… And hiss his laugh in my ear through the front of what I think
were his dentures, this gesture always ended in a quiet throaty whistle… Her obvious response was that he made her
spit! But still, to my irritation, no moisture was ever forthcoming!

Growing up in this strange world, finally at the
age of about four I realised that my grandparents could not stand the sight of each
other but were tied to one another in some form or other … Possibly because it
was a generational thing … ? They were never to my knowledge kind to each
other, except on two occasions, Grandpa was knocked over on his bicycle on the
North Circular Road, on arriving at hospital he was given a pain killer for his
injuries; unfortunately he was allergic to the drug and he had a major stroke,
which rendered him unable to speak … He would stutter, stammer and shake, however
I do remember on occasions he was able, under his breath to hiss the audible
words, at grandma .. Bitch and Fuck … At times of his frustration … Despite
this …. She sat with him day after day, for over a year, such was the
determination of my grandmother to coax him back to health. Writing
endless sentences and doing sums for him to copy and say to her out loud.

She would put a heavy glass ashtray in
front of him to pick up, to try and reverse the paralysis in his arm and hand.
After a year or so …. I think in order to get away from her he made a full
recovery… He wanted to get back down the bus depot where he was a bus conductor
and where there were men and free whisky! She had done her job and he was off
her hands again. The second time there was some kindness from him was when he
was dying and she was at his hospital bed and he wanted her to hold his hand ….
She refused …

For the party grandma’s ashes must be
found … So the search was on … To put you in the picture and describe Elvira’s
and Uncle Doug’s wonderfully shambolic and rambling home. You approach the
property via a joint driveway shared with the large old house next door which
has been converted to an old people’s home, their house is on the right as you
approach. This Sussex property has beautiful views over the adjoining countryside.
The house has a large number of rooms on the ground floor, on the second floor
is a more open planned area, stuffed full of their life’s accessories, bits and
bobs. To the back of the house there is a large acreage of overgrown scrappy
lawn that has been vaguely tamed into walkways by a ride on lawn mower, to be
frank it is really too much for two people in their seventies to handle, but this
is the way they want to live their lives. To the left of the house, on a lower level is
a 1970’s style building housing a very old and rather frightening swimming
pool, with water that has more than its fair share of shades of green and in
one corner looks slightly like a swamp.. Beyond that is further bumpy scrubland
lawn with a five foot hedge denoting the perimeter of their property to its
neighbours, the old people’s home. However the hedge just stops and you can
walk around it onto the neighbouring lawn. To the right of their property there
are a number of scattered outhouses one of which is a dance studio, where my aunt
has been a very successful dance professor. There are many glasshouses
scattered around the main house, that are filled to the brim with overgrowing
plants that have pushed their way out through smashed windows. Other outhouses are
filled to bursting with more relics from their past, Doug who was in the film
industry, has containers of scripts and reels of films billowing out of boxes
in these storage huts. Under the house is my aunt’s collection, thirty plus
years of The Telegraph newspaper, bundled into piles tied with string. Elvira
needs these newspapers just in case she may require an article contained in
these precious documents, she has a penchant for cutting out snippets of
articles and sending bits of news to you in order to demonstrate a particular
point or to inform you of something you might not have known or understood, in
a previous life! I have received a large
number of cuttings over the years as have the rest of the family. Nowadays
Elvira sends the information via email. Interestingly the emails arrive in the
most unusual staccato format that is sometimes difficult to follow, she uses
stars, exclamation marks and full stops like some people use emoji. Without exception Elvira always signs off her
notes or emails with; ‘So busy’ or ‘In haste’. Both ‘sign off’, comments over
the years have really irritated and infuriated her brother Trevor. Because he
likes to think that he is the more important and busier than anyone else!
Families and their foibles … Don’t you just love ‘em! It makes me laugh!

Back to the party …. As ever with all
families there is always a back story, ours is a black comedy drama. Grandma's
final resting was agreed to be in the back garden of Elvira and Doug’s house. A
marquee had been erected and vast amounts of food had been ordered from Marks
and Spencer to see us all through the weekend, as Elvira now refuses to cook. Grandma's
seven children and their respective wives and partners and some of the eighteen
or so grandchildren and anyvague
relatives with the similar surname were wheeled in for the event. The Jones
have a strange ability and need to find distant relatives to enthuse over, I
think this is mostly as they don’t particularly like their actual close family
who have seen them for whom they really are! Therefore new shinny relatives are
always handy and welcome at any event. Having the common surname Jones you can
imagine we have a lot of potential new family members to choose from!

The final resting place for Grandma was
to be under a newly planted tree, by the hedge adjoining the neighbouring property. The
placing of thesemi-mature
tree turned out to be significant and was to be paid for by Trevor. Uncle Doug
had confided to Trevor that the position of
the tree was critical, as he and Aunt Elvira like to sunbathe in the nude, this
had sometimes confused the oldpeople
in the nursing home next door. Particularly
the Captain, who resided at the home, andwhose window looked down on to my aunt and uncles back garden.
Confused or not the Captain sometimes with other occupants
of the home would wonder over into the garden, to join the fun, possibly in the
hope of something more than your average cup of sugar? If you get my drift? ..

I suppose, if you think about it, sometimes
the days in an old people’s home must drag a bit so the occupants must look for
other ways to be amused? Elvira and Doug provided perfect adult entertainment
in this regard! …. So to avoid unwanted guests the tree needed to be placed in
a precise location. Some of Trevor's many staffwere dispatched prior to the ceremony to plant the ‘modesty’ tree.

On the day we were there, drinks were
flowing well and my uncles were making a great deal of fuss over our daughter
who is always rather pleased to be the centre of attention and enjoying the
fuss, and why not! As ever in the UK the weather was living up to the “not as
summery as it should be” factor, in fact it was quite chilly and there was a
hell of a wind. So instead of eating in the marquee, which was bellowing in the
strong breeze, we were to eat in the main house. One of my cousins, Elvira’s
child, was entertaining me, telling me all the gossip about various members of
the family and all the goings on at the party the day before. Really is that
not the point of these meetings … The gossip? My cousin told me to look at the
fireplace, “we could not find grandma’s ashes anywhere in the house or in the out
buildings!” Elvira had put grandma somewhere safe but she could not remember
where? Therefore Elvira had had no choice and was forced to scrape out the
ashes from the fire place for the event until she could lay her hands on the
real grandma! I told you at the beginning of this story … facts or reality
rarely affects what the Jones do! Totally irreverent of both us, but it added
to the humour of what was to come! And it was most probably true!

After lunch we were all forced out of
the house to undertake the main event and indulge in a little mud pie making! My
beautiful mother dressed as always like a supermodel was asked by Elvira to
make her way to the back of the marquee,where my mother came across a wheel barrow of soil and another wheelbarrow
filled with dried manure! Elvira holding grandma’s ashes in a canteen in one
hand and a desert spoon in the other explained to my mother that she had worked
out, presumably into a kitchen bowl a night or two before? That each of the
family had two and a half scoops of grandma’s ashes, to mix. The plan was to
scoop out your allotted amount of grandma into a Tupperware box then take two
spoon full’s of manure from the wheelbarrow deposit that on top of grandma and
then sprinkle an appropriate amount of soil of the top of the mixture! Yes
really!! There was a watering can on hand so you could pour some water over the
grandma mixture and combine her into a smooth ‘roux’. Finally, the wet human slop was to be deposited in another wheelbarrow located nearby, which had a net
covering it, containing the contents of the day’s
before ceremony of grandma’s “bake-off” mix congealed together by other members
of the family! … Quite literally turning grandma into a mud
pie!

I could tell something was up as I
could hear shrieks of hysterical laughter from my mother, there is no stopping
her once she gets started, and then you could hear loud chastising from my aunt
who was trying to control my mother’s guffawing. To my aunts horror and my
mother’s lack of reverence in the face of the ensuing ludicrous task. My
mother’s attempts to deposit two and half scoops of grandma into a Tupperware
box was being hampered by the wind and the ashes were being blown away. My
mother, due to her violent laughter attack was not quick enough to secure
grandma’s ashes under the manure and soil and slosh her with a gloop of water....
So as a result some parts of grandma became unattached, blown away by the wind and
are now residing somewhere over the Sussex countryside, a lucky escape for that
bit of grandma if you ask me!

When it came to mine and my daughters
turn .. I went all haughty and said that I could not be involved in turning
grandma into a mud pie, the idea was quite ridiculous! In hindsight, writing
this, I think this was wrong .. And I should get a life! Perhaps grandma would have found it quite
acceptable ….. And funny … Let’s face it some memorials are boring!

The interesting thing was that once we
had a barrow load of grandma’s mud pie mix. It sort of just sat there and no
further progress was made on that day…. We just got chatting and the scattering
of the ashes got put to one side! Grandma was immortalised into a mud pie, so I
guess she could wait, other things were going on.

A bit later, having gone into the house
to hide from the weather, I had an interesting if not surreal conversation in
the kitchen with my aunts and uncles, with the exception of Elvira and Doug,
they took me to one side to discuss on where my aunt kept the breakfast cereal?
Not exactly a scintillating conversation, but each to their own! My aunts and
uncles, knowing how close I am to Elvira told me of her habit of repatriating
the breakfast cereal back to the bottom cupboard in the kitchen, they were all
taking it in turns to put the cereal into one of the top cupboards. However each
and every morning, the cereal would find its way back into the under counter
cupboard! … As you might imagine, I could not quite grasp the importance of
where the breakfast cereal was housed, I mean did it really matter? But they
were most insistent that I discuss the matter with her! Delving further to see
what the actual problem was, why does it matter where the cereal is kept? Well
you would think!!?? It transpired that Elvira has always kept the breakfast
cereal in the lower cupboard… For my Uncle Doug’s delight and personal
enjoyment!

Then the penny dropped … It emerged
that my aunt does not wear underwear in the mornings a long standing
arrangement between her and her husband, she wears the equivalent of what we
would call a baby doll nighty, I guess having being a sex kitten of the 1960/1970,
why not??.. Incidentally, to her credit at the opening of the premiere of the film
Entertaining Mr Sloane by Joe Orton, produced by her husband July 1970, Elvira
knocked Princess Margret off the front pages of the newspapers at the premiere … So beautiful is she?

However back to #cerealgate. In the
mornings when Elvira enters the kitchen, to her siblings and respective wives
horror, who are happily sitting at the table eating breakfast …. Elvira bends
down, full ‘flash’ to get her breakfast cereal!??… What can I say??? And indeed
that was my question to my aunts and uncles….. What do you want me to say to
her? The general consensus was that I am close to my aunt and I would be able
to make her see sense … Christ this is my family, no one sees sense! But okay …
I will give it a shot …!

Elvira came into the kitchen to collect
some more food so I seized the moment and took a deep breath. Whilst my uncle
and aunts shuffled conspiratorially behind me to see what the response would
be! “Elvira!” I gesticulated toward the assembled members peering on with
childlike interest. And they shuffled back slightly, again! “Elvira why do you or
Doug keep moving the cereal from the top cupboard where your guests are putting
it, back to the under counter bottom cupboard? Did you realise they can all see
…. Well, em see your naked bottom?” She turned around with condiments in her
hands and stared at me, seemingly with her mind elsewhere, so I continued, as
if to try and point out the obvious … “these are after all - your brothers?”
Without even a blink she shrugged her shoulders, glanced at the assembled crowd
and just confirmed.“ Oh they never see my front bottom they only ever see my
back bottom, I do it for Doug!” And off she went out of the kitchen … To
stunned silence … What can you really say? Well I am sure we can say a lot ….
But I suppose the nub of the matter is that it was their home and she can have
her cereal in whatever cupboard she wants to put it … I guess?? …. Each to
their own! … I turned to my aunts and uncles, picked up my glass of wine and
attempted to copy my aunt’s aplomb .. Suggesting that they admired the ceiling in the kitchen when Elvira was
deciding whether to have Rice Crispys or Co-Co Pops! What can you do! … Clearly
they are nudists!

As I said, grandma, or what was left of
grandma thanks to my mother’s hysteria was never on that day, consigned to the ground
as on this family occasion talking and musing on life had taken over and the
weather became windy and dull so grandma remained quietly in her wheelbarrow… As
it turned out this happened to be a good thing … As some weeks later the
‘modesty’ tree which had already been planted with a hole left to one side for
grandma’s ashes… Died before the ashes had been scattered! It had been planted
over a Nissan hut which had restricted its root system and killed it off. I
have to say another bodge-up by Trevor.

So some weeks later another tree was
purchase and delivered to the house for replanting in the same location… Two
more Polish workmen were dispatched to my aunt’s house to undertake the
planting of this fine new specimen. However before planting the Nissan hut needed to
be dug out first, as you can imagine a fairly major job, particularly by hand!
These poor men dug and dug, extricating chunks of concrete as they went. The
weather had improved, it was now a heat wave
and the sun was shining down upon their backs, making it not only back breaking
work, but they ran with sweat in the heat. They dug and dug and dug over a
number of days.… Eventually they were close to the end of the job.. Back
filling the hole with manure and soil ready to plant the tree. The hole was
deep enough at this point for the men to stand with just their head and
shoulders above ground level….

In the house there was a knock at the
door and it was Elvira’s teenage granddaughter; who had been taking a student
gap year and had turned up to see her grandparents. To see her granddaughter
was a great excitement to Elvira. She wanted to show her the progress of the final
resting place of grandma, which her granddaughter had missed due to being
abroad … In the ensuing excitement Elvira on the way out of the kitchen door to
the garden, grabbed a canteen that was on the shelf, proclaiming to her
granddaughter that she too could be part of grandma’s final resting place as
these were grandma’s ashes … Elvira ran toward the two workman, slogging away,
digging in the hole, glimmering with sweat … And in a moment of supreme
dramatic gesture, ripped of the lid of the canister and threw the contents into
the air directly above where the two workman were digging, both who had stood
to watch what Elvira was doing…. Too late to get out of the way, the men were
open mouthed at this performance, yes grandma’s ashes flew into the air in a
blacken smoke only to land on the sweaty workman … Sticking and clogging to
their wet skin …. The men spat and gasped and spat again trying to rid
themselves of the dried ashes of grandma … Scraping at their bodies trying to brush
off the dried powdery residue of grandma off their shiny wet bodies ….

To this day I am unsure if the two
workman were fully aware of what was thrown at them, really not nice … But a
number of things spring to mind? Firstly, I do wonder at the quantity of ashes
grandma managed tocreate, she was only a small woman. There was the measured
out number of spoonful’s at the earlier family party occasion and a further
canteen of ashes thrown at these two unsuspecting workman. And secondly, I feel
somewhat gratified, as grandma had spent most of her life announcing that she
wanted to spit and to my knowledge never managed to carry out this threat.. So
at least in death she managed to make someone else spit and I secretly think
that she would have been pleased…

As a footnote to this story, some years
later when my uncle Doug had been diagnosed with a mild form of Alzheimer’s. I
called the house to speak to Elvira and Doug answered the phone.. We got
chatting and he advised me to his delight that Elvira was riding on the lawn
mower … Presumably mowing the lawn? He then told me that she was knicker-less!
This is not the sort of thing he would have normally said to his niece under
ordinary circumstances therefore I was desperately thinking of ways I could
divert this type of conversation and so to speak … Get him off topic!! …. Then
he announced that he was sitting watching Elvira with his Percy … To this day
it makes my toes curl.. I mean what the hell do you say to that? I was
stammering over my words .. Anything to
move on with a different conversation …. One of those dying moments… I carried
on chatting about whatever came into my mind other than my uncles Percy! … Then
over the line I heard a meow…. “What is that Doug?” … “It’s Percy my new cat …
He was a stray and he has adopted me…” Well as you can imagine not only a
welcome relief to me … But a lovely moment .. As Percy gave them both such
delicious joy in the years to come and Percy, I am guessing had no problem with
where the cereals were kept!

If you follow the NP/ME
Styleblogs you will know that my
mates at The Speedof Sound and we have
worked together before … We created art back drops for two of their songs,
checkout .. Checkered Land, January 2014 and Shut All The Clubs, February 2016.

Asked by The Speed of Sound if
they could use this shot, we had edited for their song video.…. For a
promotional T-Shirt …. Obviously the answer was “YES”…. what a compliment … A new string to our
bow …

Here are some fun shots of the T-Shirt, which you can
purchase from The Speedof Sound
for £15.00. [It
is great quality] .. I have one …

So if you see a picture on the NP/ME site or on my twitter feed @NNpme that you like or
you would like me to take a picture specially for you let us know ….

For
the second time NP/ME Style has had the opportunity of working with The Speed of
Sound, we provided the background pictures for their heart felt writing about the
loss of privately owned and council run venues across the country, which limits
the stages bands can perform on.

The
song Shut
All The Clubs points out the sad fact that these valuable culture social
meeting places are being shut down and bulldozed to make space for developments
of flats, corporate buildings, restaurant chains and the ubiquitous coffee
houses and designer celebrity ‘chef’ restaurants.

The
song alludes to a time when these spaces had a personal identity within their
community along with the people that inhabited them. Culturally now we seem to
live in a world that is all the same, every town centre mirrors the last. The
high streets are full of the same corporate companies all with their special personal
relationship with the tax man!

We
happily loaned some pictures that we had taken to be used in this video:-

The
strange fact is that these pictures were taken in a derelict house that we
demolished to build two new five bedroom luxury homes. It should be pointed out
that the demolished property had been condemned and could not be rebuilt, so we
believe like The Speed of Sound that if you are going to redevelop then it
should be done with an eye for style that works within its surroundings,
complies where possible with modern ergonomics, but overall maintains some
character of its own!

It
is inevitable that our urban environmental needs must change and be upgraded as
time moves forward and modern life dictates a different pace and style of
living. But do we really need to rape and pillage, architecturally speaking, our
towns, cities and villages of their identity?

NP/ME
Style likes all types of design as long as it is done well and considered within
its surroundings, but I totally empathize with The Speed of Sound lyrics in Shut
All The Clubs. Please let us all be individual and leave some doors
open giving us an element of freedom and choice. Letting us breathe the fresh
air of individuality!

Cheers!! To my great friends Craig and Tessa, who have allowed me to style these pictures of their fantastic Gastro Pub. Designed by Hennessy Interiors; @Hennessyint. My only warning is ........ BOOK FIRST!!